Zahra Gor­don

Fe­male body­builder Kash­ma Ma­haraj is get­ting to the top of her game. Hav­ing made her mark on the sport lo­cal­ly by win­ning nu­mer­ous com­pe­ti­tions, Ma­haraj has now set her sights on in­ter­na­tion­al suc­cess.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, as Ma­haraj con­tin­ues to ex­cel, she won't ex­act­ly be car­ry­ing the T&T flag. Last year, Ma­haraj be­came a na­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the US Vir­gin Is­lands' (USVI) body­build­ing team. Ma­haraj made the de­ci­sion to re­sign per­ma­nent­ly from the T&T Body Build­ing Fed­er­a­tion (TTBBF) be­cause of what she de­scribed as a lack of sup­port from the or­gan­i­sa­tion. In ad­di­tion to rep­re­sent­ing USVI, Ma­haraj al­so made the de­ci­sion to re­lo­cate to the US.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view at Fit­ness Cen­tre in Mar­aval on Tues­day, Ma­haraj ex­plained that the move has been ben­e­fi­cial. "Ini­tial­ly it was dif­fi­cult with the home­sick­ness and miss­ing my friends and fam­i­ly, but there's a large body­build­ing com­mu­ni­ty and the gym where I train has all types of ath­letes so it's a nice en­vi­ron­ment where you can learn from peo­ple and you can form a re­al­ly valu­able net­work," she said. She added that af­ter top­ping nu­mer­ous lo­cal and re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tions, mov­ing to in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion was the on­ly way she could con­tin­ue to work as a pro­fes­sion­al body­builder.

The move has proven to be a good choice quite quick­ly. In March, Ma­haraj placed first at the Arnold Clas­sic in the Am­a­teur Women's Heavy­weight cat­e­go­ry. "I was ec­sta­t­ic," she said. "That was the best mo­ment of my life. I was com­pet­ing among top ath­letes and it was an ho­n­our to be there. When I found out I just tried not to cry."

In Oc­to­ber, 32-year-old Ma­haraj will com­pete in the Arnold Clas­sic in Eu­rope. She'll be in Trinidad un­til that time prepar­ing for the com­pe­ti­tion and do­ing per­son­al train­ing. She'll al­so be set­ting the ground work for a fran­chise of gyms she plans to open through­out the Caribbean start­ing with a lo­ca­tion in Bar­ba­dos in No­vem­ber. The gyms won't be ex­clu­sive­ly for body­builders, how­ev­er. "I want my gym to be an all en­com­pass­ing fa­cil­i­ty. I want it to be fam­i­ly ori­ent­ed–some­thing that's go­ing to pro­mote healthy peo­ple and healthy fam­i­lies; I want there to be all types of gym goes leisure­ly and pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes."

Pro­mot­ing healthy lifestyles is im­por­tant to Ma­haraj es­pe­cial­ly be­cause of some of the stereo­types sur­round­ing her cho­sen sport. "That's one of the first things you hear, 'it's a drug sport.'" But it's not the IF­BB (In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Body Build­ing and Fit­ness) and the oth­er fed­er­a­tions are non-per­for­mance en­hance­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions. Body­build­ing is a lifestyle and at the end of the day, you can take as much drugs as you want but it won't make you a great body­builder."

Drug­ging is on­ly one stereo­type Ma­haraj has to bat­tle as a body­builder. She not­ed that lots of peo­ple as­sume body­builders are ag­gres­sive and vi­o­lent and as a fe­male, there are ques­tions about her sex­u­al­i­ty. Many peo­ple be­lieve fe­male body­builders are au­to­mat­i­cal­ly les­bians and not fem­i­nine. "It's a mat­ter of per­cep­tion and rel­a­tiv­i­ty. I op­er­ate in the world of body­build­ing so I can com­pare my­self to many oth­er women in the field and by those stan­dards I'm quite fem­i­nine. it re­al­ly de­pends on what stan­dard you have be­cause in the larg­er so­ci­ety peo­ple aren't ac­cus­tomed to women with mus­cles."

Yet Ma­haraj's com­mit­ment to the sport holds strong and she looks for­ward to the day when body­build­ing be­comes an Olympic sport - an oc­ca­sion she be­lieves is long over­due. "I think body­build­ing needs to be recog­nised and re­spect­ed more be­cause every sin­gle ath­lete that you look at it, is get­ting in­for­ma­tion from body­build­ing. Apart from be­ing a sport, I see it as an art. It's the abil­i­ty to sculpt your body in­to what you want it to look like."

To find out more about Kash­ma, vis­it her Web site: www.kash­mama­haraj.com. If you'd like to find out more about train­ing with Kash­ma you can al­so con­tact: 323-6428.

Ma­haraj's com­pe­ti­tion his­to­ry:

2008

TTBBF Na­tion­al Ju­niors 1st Place and Over­all Fig­ure

Su­per Fit In­ter­na­tion­al 1st Place and Over­all Fig­ure

TT­TBBF Na­tion­al Se­niors 3rd Place- Fig­ure cat­e­go­ry; short class

Mr. & Ms. South Com­pe­ti­tion 1st Place and Over­all Fig­ure

CJ Sam­my Clas­sic 1st Place and Over­all Fig­ure

2009

TTBBF Na­tion­al Ju­niors 1st Place and over­all Fe­male body­builder

TTBBF Na­tion­al Se­niors 1st Place and over­all Fe­male body­builder

North vs. South Body­build­ing Clas­sic 1st Place and over­all Fe­male body­builder

2010

Mus­cle Ma­nia 1st Place and over­all fe­male body­builder

2011

TTBBF Na­tion­al Se­niors 1st Place and over­all fe­male body­builder

2013

Arnold Clas­sic USA Am­a­teur Women's Body­build­ing Heavy­weight cat­e­go­ry 1st place